This Awesome Urn Will Turn You into a Tree After You Die

This Awesome Urn Will Turn You into a Tree After You Die
by Teodora Zareva
May 6, 2011, 11:50 PM
Bios3

You don't find many designers working in the funeral business thinking about more creative ways for you to leave this world (and maybe they should be). However, the product designer Gerard Moline has combined the romantic notion of life after death with an eco solution to the dirty business of the actual, you know, transition.

His Bios Urn is a biodegradable urn made from coconut shell, compacted peat and cellulose and inside it contains the seed of a tree. Once your remains have been placed into the urn, it can be planted and then the seed germinates and begins to grow. You even have the choice to pick the type of plant you would like to become, depending on what kind of planting space you prefer.

12. What a beautiful idea! Let's hope people who can make it happen will run with your idea. nt

6. I like it! This is similar to an ancient Amazon tradition.

The legend goes that an Amazon was to be buried beneath a tree as it was a growing, living thing and was a testament to her life, as opposed to a rock, which was lifeless and cold. I always liked that myth.

7. technically speaking...

Most of your remains will be turned into trees as a result of the CO2 emissions from the cremation. (Trees grow from "breathing.") Just a few minerals will be absorbed from the urn through the roots. That should still count.

19. "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?"

Walters was widely lampooned in 1981 (and often since) for having posed the question, during an interview with actress Katharine Hepburn: "If you were a tree, what kind would you be?" But as she has often pointed out (and the video clips confirm) Hepburn initiated the discussion by saying that she would like to be a tree, and Walters merely followed up with the question, "What kind of a tree?"